The field of the present invention is conveying systems capable of additionally moving and/or reorienting units being conveyed.
Conveyors for produce have long been available which include rollers. Reference is made to U.S. Pat. No. 4,106,628. Other conveyors for produce have incorporated off-loading elements with a conveyor. Reference is made to U.S. Pat. No. 4,961,489. Conveying systems have also combined use of rollers to define the conveying surface and off-loading elements travelling with the conveying element to off-load produce from the concavities defined between adjacent rollers. Reference is made to U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,029,692, 5,195,628, 5,215,179 and 5,474,167, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference.
In the foregoing patents, the rollers are rotatably mounted to the conveying system about axes perpendicular to the conveying path. Static drives have long been employed beneath such rollers to cause rotation of the product conveyed so that it can be viewed or inspected from multiple sides. Reference is made to U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,156,278, 5,286,980 and 5,401,954, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference. Dynamic drives incorporating friction belts movably mounted and driven beneath the conveyor have been used to speed up or slow down the rotation which might otherwise be provided by a static drive or friction plate located beneath the transversely mounted rollers.
The foregoing patents disclose systems which have provided versatile and efficient conveying with positioning and off-loading which have proven to be accurate and versatile. With long produce, such as cucumbers, squash and the like, the foregoing systems provide an appropriate cradle for conveying the produce but lack the ability to uniformly rotate the produce for inspection of all sides. The presentation of all sides for inspection can be important for blemish grading and recognition of color anomalies.
The foregoing conveying systems have been found to be particularly adaptable for use with electronic scanning equipment. Reference is made to U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,018,864, 5,106,195, 5,156,278, 5,223,917, 5,286,980 and 5,401,954, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference, disclosing such equipment and methods.